


Sacraments

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-08-31
Updated: 2001-08-31
Packaged: 2018-11-20 21:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11343879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Drunken Skinner, thoughtful Mulder, breastfeeding Scully, lots of conversation, piles of angst.





	Sacraments

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Sacraments by EmGee

Title: Sacraments  
Author: EmGee   
Category: UST, pre-threesome M/M/F, PRE-SLASH (well duh, with a threesome there'd have to be slash involved at some point)  
Rating: R for sexual references and adult themes  
Spoilers: Existence and other assorted Season 8 happenings  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Pity, that; I'd treat them better than TPTB. And I don't make a penny on them, either.  
Summary: Drunken Skinner, thoughtful Mulder, breastfeeding Scully, lots of conversation, piles of angst.  
Feedback: Yes. Yes. Yes, goddamnit!   
Thanks: To my MenageATrois listsibs, especially Kristen and Ursula, who saw portions of this story in draft/WIP form and kept telling me "More! More!" Thanks, guys. I wouldn't have finished my first XFiles fic without you.

* * *

Sacraments  
by EmGee

~ Part 1 ~

Eventually, I realize that someone is knocking on the door. Has been knocking for some time. All I want to do is ignore it, but the volume is steadily escalating. Whoever it is, he -- or she -- isn't going to stop.

I put my glass down, or try to. It catches the edge of the table and a pungent splash of scotch cascades over the polished surface before the glass tumbles from my hand and onto the rug. "Damn," I say automatically but with no real regret. What does it matter, really? "Go away!" I shout, and the knocking stops for a moment before beginning again. It's even louder this time. Pretty soon it will attract the attention of the neighbors.

I shift my legs, preparing to rise, and hear the dull thud of something landing on the rug. Oh, yeah. My weapon. Not the one I'd used to--But I don't want to think about that. I stare down at it for a moment, trying to decide if I should reach for it. No, better not. If I bend down I'll probably fall over.

It's difficult to get out of the chair. Once I manage the task and look at the level of liquid remaining in the open bottle on the table, I understood why, in an alcohol-fogged sort of way.

A voice has been added to the sound of rapping knuckles. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Damn." This time I mean it. I drift to the door, not quite sure where I'm putting my feet. By the time I reach it, the room is spinning. I lean my forehead against the frame and hope I won't fall; the floor seems a very long way down. "What do you want?"

"Please, sir. Open the door."

"Go home, Mulder, and let a man get drunk in peace." Why did I say that? Bad move, very bad. I'll never get rid of him now.

"I'm not leaving. Let me in, sir."

I sigh, shift myself carefully while maintaining contact with solid objects at all times, and open the door. Mulder's face floats before me, a little fuzzy around the edges.

"I don't think you need to *get* drunk. It seems to me, sir, that you're already there." Mulder moves my arm aside and insinuates himself into my apartment.

"I'm still cons-- conscience. Con-scious," I say. My mouth isn't working quite right. "Awake. So I'm not drunk enough yet. And I'm not your boss anymore, so don't call me 'sir.'" I try for my usual growl but the look in Mulder's eyes tells me I hadn't been too successful at it.

"All right." It's Mulder's usual faintly amused, let's-not-take-any-of-this-too-seriously tone. The tone that has made me want to smash him against the nearest concrete wall on more than one occasion. "What should I call you?"

"Walter," I say.

Mulder nods thoughtfully. "Walter it is, then." He looks around the darkened room. "Thought I'd stop by and say hey."

"Hey. And goodbye."

He ignores the directive. Nothing new there. "Mind if I turn on some lights? And why is it so damned hot in here?"

I shiver. I've been cold, bone-chillingly cold, for days. "Doesn't feel hot to me. Why are you here, Mulder?" I shut the door and lean against it, trying for the casual look. In reality, I don't trust myself to move without falling over my feet. And the room is beginning to tilt alarmingly.

Mulder is a positive flurry of activity, turning on lamps, sniffing into and then capping the open liquor bottle, crouching to pick up my gun lying on the rug, leaning over to fish the glass I'd dropped from under the chairside table. All that motion is making me feel very queasy. Finally, mercifully, Mulder straightens, stills, and looks at me. "You've been conspicuous by your absence, Walter. Scully's been wondering where you've been hiding yourself."

"I've been busy," I mumble.

"Try again. We know you're on administrative leave pending investigation of the incident."

Incident. It's such an innocuous word for such a monstrous event. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I've spent all day and night, and the past three days and nights, trying to forget that particular reality, and here is Mulder ripping down all my carefully built defenses.

My stomach turns over. I'm suddenly aware that the prospect of puking my guts out is no longer a question of if, but when. Better get to the toilet if I don't want to ruin what's left of my iron man image.

"Kitchen's that way," I say, waving vaguely in the general direction. "Help yourself. I gotta--" I swallow convulsively, feeling the saliva start to flow, and stagger to my bedroom and on through to the bathroom.

It's a close call, but I make it just in time. Tomorrow my knees will be bruised from the force with which they hit the tile floor, but I hardly notice that now. There comes a brief but extremely unpleasant period of energetic worship at the porcelain altar, followed by a short pause and then more of the same. Finally my stomach is empty, but it refuses to get the message. The dry heaves remind me why I seldom get drunk. I know that my stomach and back muscles will be sore in the morning, if the mammoth headache I can feel building behind my eyeballs doesn't kill me sooner.

Somewhere in the middle of the action I become dimly aware of hands removing my glasses -- I'm just sober enough to be glad they didn't fall into the toilet -- and supporting my head. The last thing I want is for Mulder to witness this disgusting spectacle, but I'm pretty sure I can't hold my head up on my own. I feel one hand leave my head to flush; watching the swirling water makes me dizzy, and I close my eyes. Then that hand moves to my back. The circular rubbing motion is oddly soothing.

"Take a breath, Walter. A deep breath," he says.

Great, just great. Mulder is coaching now. But I do as I'm told and after one more sickening lurch, my stomach settles back into its normal position. A jackhammer pounds in my head. "Aspirin," I croak. "I need aspirin."

"Not yet," Mulder says, putting down the toilet lid and helping me off my knees to stand in front of the sink. "It won't stay down."

"The voice of experience?" I squint at the image in the mirror. Haggard, unshaven, eyes red-rimmed, face the color of library paste -- I barely recognize myself.

"Don't sound so disbelieving, Walter. I've been known to tie one on from time to time." He hands me my toothbrush. "If you can run that around your mouth without barfing again, you'll get toothpaste."

I don't dare try to brush the fuzz off my tongue, knowing that it will set my gag reflex in motion. Just the sensation of something in my mouth is nearly enough to get me going again. Mulder hands me a cup of water and I rinse, stifling one last impulse to retch as I bend over to spit. I wave off the tube of toothpaste he holds out to me.

By the time I put down the brush and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, Mulder has started the shower. I can't figure out why all this hovering and caretaking isn't making me jump right out of my skin. But it's not. I'm actually starting to be, if not happy, then at least not actively annoyed that Mulder is around. 

I get a whiff of myself in the close confines of the bathroom. I haven't showered or changed my clothes in a couple of days, and I'm pretty ripe. It's obvious why Mulder, who usually looks like he's stepped off the pages of GQ and who generally smells better than most women, seems so anxious to reacquaint me with soap and water. I start to take off my shirt, fumbling with the buttons, and Mulder leaves me to it.

It takes all my concentration to remain upright under the warm spray. Thank god I've got one of those wall-mounted bath gel dispensers in the shower; I'd never be able to keep a bar of soap in my hands. By the time I turn off the water, my eyes are drooping shut. I towel off and then carefully and slowly put on the clean sweats that Mulder has left for me. Getting my legs into the pants without falling over proves to be a major challenge. The anvil chorus is still pounding in my head, and the harsh bathroom light seems to be drilling right through my eyeballs, but miraculously my stomach is steady.

In the bedroom Mulder is waiting. "Here," he says, handing me four pills and a huge glass. "Aspirin. And drink all the water."

I sit down on the edge of the bed, take the pills and wash them down. Meanwhile my alcohol-soaked brain is trying to make sense of the situation. Who is this man in front of me? Surely not the Mulder I know, the motor-mouthed, acid-tongued, supercilious, insubordinate pain in the ass who has caused me more trouble than all my other agents combined. Did he shed those attributes along with his FBI ID and his gun? This Mulder is thoughtful, attentive, and blessedly quiet. Has fatherhood had such a profound effect already?

Suddenly it all comes back, the reason I'm sitting here with a raging headache in the company of an overly solicitous former subordinate. And then I wish I were a lot drunker so I could blame the alcohol for the way I'm shaking.

Mulder deftly divests me of the glass before I drop it. "Walter?" he asks. He's crouched in front of me.

I look into his worried eyes. "I'm okay, Mulder," I lie. "Just tired. And cold." Even the hot shower hasn't melted the core of ice in my soul.

He helps me lie back onto the pillows and swing my legs onto the bed. I let him cover me. I don't deserve his concern, his help. Didn't I forfeit the right to those things when I--

I beat back the thoughts, as I've been doing for days. "Why are you here, Mulder?" I ask one more time.

He smiles, not so much with his mouth as with his eyes. "We'll talk about it tomorrow," he says, and stands to leave.

"There's something else I have to know," I say, feeling myself slip into the cloying sleep that alcohol brings.

"What's that?"

"How in hell can you afford Armani suits?"

He chuckles, and as I force my eyes open one more time I see him looking down at me with an expression of -- affection? "Good night, Walter." 

As I fall into sleep I imagine his lips on my forehead, a benediction.

###

~ Part 2 ~

I turn off all the bedroom lights except for one small lamp on the bedside table. Then I leave Walter, already starting to snore lightly, and pull the bedroom door partly shut. 

I don't know exactly what I expected to find when I came here tonight, but it wasn't this.

The Walter Skinner I knew was a man of control and confidence, an Atlas who lifted all of us on his broad shoulders. Even when he was in the clutches of the smoking bastard, even when they infected him with the nanocytes and he couldn't be sure if his next breath would be his last, he was strong. And he managed to walk a pretty straight path through some pretty tricky moral minefields.

I spot the thermostat in the living room and check the temperature. Seventy-eight degrees, but Walter is cold. The man usually radiates heat like a blast furnace; he keeps his office refrigerated to meat locker standards. But tonight, in temperatures that he'd normally consider tropical, he was shivering. No, not shivering -- shaking. Only one kind of cold causes that sort of reaction, and it's not a physical chill.

I can identify the cause because I've been there, felt the same icicles stabbing me in the heart. This Walter Skinner is a man who has lost his way. I think I know why. What I don't know is whether what I came here to propose will put him back on the path or send him over a cliff.

I flop down on the living room sofa, pinch the bridge of my nose to try to head off the headache I feel coming on -- sympathetic vibrations, I guess -- and pull out my cell phone.

Scully answers on the second ring.

"Scully, it's me."

"Mulder, where are you?" She sounds a little worried, a little harried.

"I'm at Skinner's place. Are you all right?"

"I'm tired. And my nipples are sore. William's a slow eater."

A picture pops into my head, William at Scully's breast, and for a moment I'm giddy with happiness. I seem to have at least one such moment each day. It's usually followed by a wave of sheer panic as I wonder how someone who's led a life as seriously fucked up as mine could possibly be a successful parent.

"Mulder?"

I drag some air into my lungs and try to remember why I called. "I'm here. Walter's in a bad way, Scully. He was drunk when I got here. He looked like he'd been drunk for a while. He hadn't washed or shaved. And he'd been holding his gun."

I hear her long, slow intake of breath. "Do you think he might hurt himself?"

I sigh, and think about the look of pain in his eyes, the look he tried so hard not to show me. "I don't know. I don't want to give him the chance." I look at my watch. Eleven p.m. "I think I should stay."

"I think so too. Where is he now?"

"In bed. Sleeping it off."

"I assume you took his gun."

"Well, it's not in his bedroom with him, if that's what you mean."

"Put it away. Somewhere safe. Lock it in your car if you have to." Her words are urgent. She's scaring me a lot more than he did. I get up and walk to the bedroom, pushing the door open just enough to see Walter lying in the bed exactly as I left him, still asleep. "If he's determined to do himself harm, and he can't get to his gun -- don't leave him alone, Mulder."

A part of me refuses to believe that he would ever try to take his own life, but another part of me acknowledges that everyone has a breaking point. And the last few months may well have brought Walter to his. I begin to catalogue the available implements of self-destruction. Kitchen knives, razor, belt, pills. Probably a dozen more I haven't thought of. And -- the balcony. Scully's right; I can't leave him alone until I'm sure he isn't planning to check out.

"I'll keep him safe," I promise. "I won't let anything happen to him. Will you be okay?"

"I'm fine, Mulder. My mother is here; she'll stay the night."

"Have you talked to her?" Scully and I have spent the last three days in endless conversation about our future. Whether or not things turn out as we plan will depend mostly on Walter, which is why I came here tonight. It also will depend a lot on Scully's mother and whether she can accept some of the unconventional choices we're making.

"We've discussed some of it," she says. "She says she fears for my soul, but she hasn't disowned me. She's trying. It'll work out. How about you? Will you be all right?"

"I'll be fine. I'm glad your mom is with you. I'm glad you told her." If we're to have any hope of happiness in the life we're trying to build, we'll need all the support we can get from Maggie Scully.

"Take care of him, Mulder. Make him understand. Bring him home."

"I'll take care of him. As for the rest . . . I'll do what I can."

"I know. Call if you need me. I love you."

She never said these words to me, before I died. Now she hardly ever leaves me, or ends a phone conversation, without them. Scully's declaration is a reminder of the wilderness I've crossed, the time that divides my existence on this earth into two distinct lifetimes, BD and AD. Before Dead and After Dead. I guess I should be glad I don't remember WD, While Dead.

There isn't a day goes by that something or someone doesn't remind me that I've been dead and buried, then reanimated like some ghoul in one of those cheesy zombie movies I used to fall asleep to. The horror of it doesn't crawl up my spine any more. Not most of the time, anyway. In fact, I'm glad of the reminders. They renew my gratitude for the simple, special pleasures of life, like learning to accept the truth of Scully's words, learning to speak a truth of my own.

"Love you too, Scully. Kiss William for me."

"I will. Good night."

"Good night." I pocket my phone and find a hiding place for Skinner's gun, out of sight in a recess at the top of an armoire in the living room. On second thought I put my own weapon up there too. I may no longer be a Federal agent but there's no way, with everything that's happened to me, that I'll go unarmed. I still hold a carry permit, and I still take target practice every week. I have a lot more sympathy now for the rabid activism of the NRA. Anyone who wants my handgun will have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

There's nothing I can do about all the other potential implements of suicide; there are too many of them in any uncontrolled environment. Scully understood that when she told me not to leave Walter alone. There's an armchair in his bedroom. Not nearly as comfortable as the couch would be, but I don't dare let him out of my sight.

In the bedroom, I strip down to my tee shirt and briefs. Walter has stopped snoring. He's lying on his side, his back to me. I would dearly love to just lie down there beside him, and it's precisely because of how much I want it that I don't do it.

Walter's too deeply asleep to be bothered by my rummaging around for a blanket. I find one on the closet shelf and settle down in the chair, sure that even if I fall asleep I'll wake if he does.

Some time later I come to with a jolt. A troubling sound has wormed its way into my consciousness. At first, I don't remember where I am but as I toss the blanket aside, I reorient myself to time and place. I look at my watch. It's almost five a.m.

The sound comes again. It's Walter. He's kicked off the covers and is tossing on the bed and making strange choking noises as if someone's strangling him. I'm afraid that he's in the midst of a heart attack or some kind of seizure, but as I go to the bed and sit beside him I realize that he's having a nightmare.

I'm about to put my hand on his shoulder and shake him awake when he stops the choking sounds and starts talking instead, words and fragments of words, a lot of it unintelligible. I sit back and listen. Every now and then I catch something that I can understand. Even without getting all the words, I have no trouble discerning the content of his dream; it's entirely predictable, considering the events of the last months and particularly the last few days. 

"Lost . . . Mmm . . . Mulder! Noooo . . ." The word comes out not as a scream, but as a moan of despair. He's still sound asleep, but even with his eyes closed I can see the tears forming, squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. Scully told me how upset Walter was to have lost me in the woods outside Bellefleur. Clearly it still disturbs him, though I'm sure he knows intellectually that there's nothing he could have done.

"Scully . . .shhh . . ." His hands are restless now, grasping and releasing the sheets over and over. "Mulder . . . oh . . ." What is he dreaming now? I wonder if it's about when I was returned. It took a lot for me to get Scully to talk about that. I didn't really want to hear it, and she definitely didn't want to tell it, but I needed to understand it from her perspective. And I need to understand Walter's role, too. Being dead didn't kill my powers of observation; the relationship between Scully and him is obviously very different now than it had been before I disappeared.

He's grabbing his chest now, and his shoulder. "K-k-k --" There's sweat on his forehead. In fact, his whole body is drenched. Shit, maybe he *is* having a heart attack. That's it; I have to wake him up. Whether he's sick or not, I can't let his agony go on any longer. I lay my hand on his arm, and with that he sits bolt upright. "Krycek!" he shouts, and takes a swing at me.

Well, not at me, really. I just happen to be in the line of fire. I know that to be the case because I've had my share of nightmares and I'm well aware of what can happen to anyone or anything within arm's reach when I'm coming out of them. Just ask Scully. I clocked her one once, right on the jaw, and she had a bruise for a week.

So anyway, I'm prepared, and I block Walter's punch. And suddenly, like flipping a switch, he's awake. Awake, but not oriented. He's big and strong, and flailing, and I grab him tight in self-defense, pinning his arms to his sides. "It's okay, Walter. It was just a dream. You're okay now." I concentrate on keeping my voice calm and steady, which isn't easy. My own heart is going a mile a minute. I'm beginning to understand what Scully meant when she said that she thought it was worse for her to watch me in the grip of a nightmare than for me to have it.

To top it all off, I'm uncomfortably aware of my half-dressed state. I've got my arms full of a very attractive man, scruffy though he may be at the moment, and a certain part of my anatomy is taking a little too much pleasure in that. At least that part isn't in direct contact with his body. I do my best to get myself under control while Walter does the same.

It takes a couple of minutes, but eventually he quiets. "Christ," he says finally. He's shaking like he did before, and he's sweaty and cold at the same time. 

I get up to retrieve a towel, and on my way to the bathroom I retrieve my jeans. No way am I going to wave my boner in his face, to say nothing of the wet spot that's starting to develop on the front of my briefs. It's not easy to get myself properly covered without doing permanent zipper damage, but I finally manage it and return to sit once again on the edge of the bed. "Here," I say, offering the towel.

Walter takes it from me and begins to mop at himself the way he would after a hard workout. "Bad one, huh?" I say, watching the tremor in his hands.

"Yeah."

"Not the first time."

"No."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not really." He tosses the towel aside.

I don't want to push him. "Okay." I stand up and make it all the way to the door, figuring I'll go look in his refrigerator for a cold drink --and maybe an ice pack for my dick -- before he speaks.

"I killed Krycek."

I don't know what has made him change his mind about talking to me, but I'm glad he did. I turn around and return to the bed, sitting as I had before. "I know. I was there."

"He was the devil." There's a hatred in his voice that I don't think I've ever heard before.

"Yeah."

"No, Mulder. I mean it. He wanted . . ." His throat works. Whatever it is he's trying to tell me, he's choking on it.

"It's all right, Walter. Just say it."

It takes him a minute, but he finally gets it out. "He wanted me to kill the baby. It was his price."

It's been clear all along that there are people who wanted Scully's child dead, though for some reason I didn't expect that Krycek would be the one pressed into service for the job. However, given Ratboy's involvement I'm not surprised that he'd try to blackmail someone else into doing his dirty work for him. "His price for what?"

"For the vaccine that would save your life."

"Jesus." I try to imagine what it would do to me to be forced into such a decision.

"I couldn't do it, Mulder. I couldn't do that to Scully. But I couldn't let what happened to Billy Miles happen to you. I went to your hospital room and disconnected your life support." His voice is flat, without affect. 

"Scully told me that being taken off life support's what saved me." Saved me from mutating into that . . . that *thing* that Billy Miles had become. The thought of what almost happened to me has wonderful deflationary effects on my hard-on. I guess every cloud has a silver lining.

"But I didn't know that. I intended you to die. If Doggett hadn't stopped me, I would have taken your pillow and smothered you with it."

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Walter had been the one turned into an automaton. His voice is empty and lifeless. It's the voice of someone who has endured pain beyond imagining, who can't go on, who sees only one way out. This I understand all too well. I came to feel the same way, lying on that table, being drilled and sliced and probed. The only thing that stopped me from killing myself was the lack of means to accomplish the task.

I'm absolutely sure now that Scully's right; he can't be left alone. I think he may be all too willing to end it all, just to stop the pain.

~ Part 3 ~

"I have to ask you something," I say.

"What is it?"

"Last night, when I got here, your gun was on the floor by your chair."

"Yeah?"

I put my hand back on his arm. "Were you planning on using that gun?" He doesn't answer. I don't think it's because he hasn't heard me.

Oh, fuck the indirect approach. "Are you having suicidal thoughts, Walter?" The proper question, phrased in the proper way. My clinical practicum supervisor would be proud.

The silence stretches, and in a way that's my answer. But this is too important for any misunderstanding. "Walter . . ."

"I think about it sometimes," he says, looking at me. "Not often. I have ever since . . . ever since Bellefleur." Ever since I was taken. "While you were . . . gone . . . and with Scully pregnant, vulnerable . .. Kersh ready to cut me off at the knees . . . Krycek out there with his damned Palm Pilot . . . the weight of it all . . . I could hardly breathe sometimes." This is so hard for him. I can see him struggling to be honest with me, with himself. "You must know what it feels like."

"I know." My mind is racing. He's said his thoughts haven't been serious, but I'm haunted by the idea of him sitting, drunk, with his gun. It's been a long time since I've done any clinical work, and I never had much experience dealing with suicidal patients. I try to remember the risk assessment protocol.

"Do you have . . . a plan?" I ask cautiously.

"What kind of plan?"

"A plan to kill yourself."

He snorts. "Don't be naïve. How does anyone in law enforcement end it all? It's quick, and it's pretty foolproof. What kind of a plan would I need? And to answer your question -- yes, I was holding my gun tonight, and no, I have no immediate plans to kill myself. It's just that after everything that's happened, I feel -- well, safer, somehow -- when it's nearby."

"I can understand that. I feel the same way."

He assesses me shrewdly. "Still carrying?"

"My gun's like my American Express card. I don't leave home without it." There is one other question I want him to answer for me, and I change the subject abruptly. "Would you have killed yourself if you had killed me?"

"I don't know." But I see the truth in his eyes. He would have eaten his gun. It's what I would have done, in his place, and in some ways he and I are very much alike. But that doesn't mean that he's suicidal today. I think the immediate risk is small, but Walter is a man in dire need of counseling. The trouble is, I don't know who could listen to everything he has to say without labeling him delusional at best, paranoid schizophrenic at worst.

"Who am I, Mulder? What have I become, that I could do that? That I could even think of doing it?" Walter's affect isn't flat any more. Now he's oozing pain from every pore.

So this is what's tearing at him. His guilt is badly misplaced, though. "It was the right decision. The baby was not -- is not -- expendable. And I'm grateful that you tried to save me from Billy Miles' fate. There are some things worse than death." I should know. Most of them have happened to me, at one time or another. "You were forced to make impossible choices, Walter, in impossible circumstances. All I can judge are the results. You protected Scully and the baby. You saved me."

"And I killed Krycek. No. I didn't kill him; I executed him." There's anger in his voice now. He's bouncing from emotion to emotion like a ping-pong ball. "I didn't have to use that third bullet. He was down, he could hardly move. All I had to do was kick away his gun, cuff him."

"He was dangerous. He wasn't to be trusted. Hell, you said it yourself. He wanted Scully's baby --" I stop and force myself to acknowledge my fatherhood. It's not easy; I'm still adjusting to the idea. "He wanted our baby dead. He held my life hostage to make that happen. Everything he did, every angle he played, everyone he betrayed, everyone he hurt, everyone he killed, everyone he tried to kill--" I shake my head. 

"I'm a law enforcement agent, Mulder. A law enforcement agent, and I put a bullet in the brain of an unarmed, injured man. It goes against everything I believe in, everything I am. Or thought I was."

I hadn't considered his actions from that perspective, which just goes to show how distracted I am these days. Walter, sworn to uphold the law, would see what he did as unlawful. Perhaps even more important, he would view his use of that third bullet as dishonorable. I'm under no such illusions. I believe with every fiber of my being that what he did was completely necessary to save his own life, mine, Scully's, William's --and the lives of a lot of other innocent people.

"But that's not the worst part." He can't even look at me now. He sounds a hundred years old.

"It's not?"

"No." He's staring straight ahead, and I see him in profile. I've never seen that expression on his face before, and I'm hard pressed to identify it. "What's worse is that when I did it, I felt nothing."

I shake my head. Only a man like Walter Skinner could feel remorse over not feeling remorse. Despite the fact that I actually liked that rat bastard Krycek some of the time, I am not similarly conflicted. The only thing I feel about his death is a savage satisfaction that we're free of his manipulations.

I'm humbled, and ashamed of myself, in the face of Walter's fundamental decency. It's hard to know what to say to him, and while I'm thinking he closes his eyes in dismissal. "Go home, Mulder," he says. 

He outweighs and outmuscles me; I figure if he really wants me to leave, he's more than capable of throwing me out. In the meantime, I'm staying put.

"Walter, none of this is your fault. I suppose that's cold comfort." The clenching of that jaw muscle is the only indication that he's still awake and listening. "I know how hard it is to choose between the lesser of two evils. I know something else, too. It's one thing to have regrets, to feel bad because of what you had to do. It's another thing to let the guilt consume you. Because if you do, you're not the only one who'll suffer."

His eyes are open now. "Sounds like you're talking about yourself."

"How do you think I came by this knowledge?" I was sure I'd get at least a hint of a smile, but instead I'm treated once again to the sight of his jaw doing the macarena. "I spent years dragging my parents, Scully, you -- everyone I cared about -- into my obsession." He doesn't give any indication that he understands what I've just said so obliquely. "I wasn't just trying to find my sister, Walter. I was also punishing myself for having lost her in the first place."

He puts his hand on my arm. "It wasn't your fault, Mulder. You couldn't have stopped it."

"I know that now." His touch feels good -- warm and strong. I put my free hand over his and squeeze hard. "And what happened to me isn't your fault, either. Not one bit of it. If I thought it was, I wouldn't be here."

"Why *are* you here?"

He asked me that before, and I thought he was too drunk for the truth. Now he's not too drunk, but I sense that he's still not ready. "I thought you might need a friend. We are friends, aren't we?"

"Yes, I'd like to think so," he says. "But that's not all, is it?"

Damn, he's good, even depressed, stressed and half hung over. "Can we talk about it later? I don't know about you, but I could use a few more hours of sleep."

He withdraws his hand and turns his head, breaking eye contact. I can feel the walls going back up. "Whatever," he says.

I return to the armchair. Walter is asleep long before I am.

###

I sleep through until almost nine and take my shower while Walter is still sleeping. He wakes to find me rummaging through his dresser drawers for a clean tee shirt.

He's almost amused by my request that he leave the bathroom door open. I'd already scoped it out and discovered that he has a straight razor. He must be the last man in the industrialized world to use one. I'm not about to prevent him from shaving and I figure that he's unlikely to try to cut his throat in my sight. It wouldn't appeal to his sense of chivalry.

There isn't much in his kitchen for breakfast. I find cereal, but the milk in the refrigerator is spoiled. There's bread in the freezer and a few eggs on the verge of old age in a carton behind the milk. There's enough juice -- grapefruit, yecch -- for one small glass. I'm not much of a cook, but even I can scramble eggs and make toast.

After breakfast we hit the street. Walter needs to walk, to clear his head. I'm familiar with the process if not the procedure. When I'm in a place like Walter is right now, I need to escape myself, and walking just doesn't cut it. Running does, though. I leave everything behind except my breathing, and the pumping of my arms, and the feeling of my feet on the pavement, stride after stride. Eventually the extra oxygen and the endorphins get me to a place where I can stand my own thoughts again.

I probably don't cover any more mileage on my runs than he has on this little excursion, but my way to inner peace would have been a lot faster. We've been walking for a couple of hours at least, and I can see that he's exhausted. The guy's in great shape for someone who sits behind a desk most days, but lately he's been drinking too much and eating too little, sleeping badly, and letting himself get way too stressed out. And he's not as young as he used to be.

Finally he shows signs of wanting to stop. We find a small park. The benches are set near the road, which isn't very pleasant, but there's some decent grass under a couple of trees, away from the traffic and the few pedestrians out in a residential neighborhood in the middle of a weekday.

Walter props his back against the trunk of a dogwood, his knees bent. I sit crosslegged facing him. We catch our breath for a while. The silence is long but surprisingly unawkward. I'm the one who finally breaks it.

"What's happening with the investigation?"

He leans his head back and closes his eyes. "I haven't the vaguest idea." The message is clear. 'Back off, Mulder.' But then again, when have I ever done what he wanted?

"How many times have you been called in?"

He sighs, knowing that once again I'm to be the thorn in his paw. "Just once."

"That's good." And it is, too. It means they're not trying too hard to poke holes in his written statement. I don't know what he wrote, but I'm sure he reported the facts accurately. I'm equally sure that he did not cite death by nanocyte, attempted infanticide, blackmail, human-alien hybrids, revenge, rage, fear, or love as reasons for his actions. The fact of Krycek's gun pointed at my head was only the last little push.

"I was accurate, but I wasn't truthful," he says, echoing my thoughts uncannily.

"The Bureau doesn't need the why, Walter, just the what. In this case, the truth won't set you free."

"No. It'll put me in Cumberland, serving a life sentence."

"Nah," I say flippantly. "Ten years at Petersburg, max." He doesn't laugh at my reduction of his self-imposed judgement of murder two to manslaughter, and I kick myself for trying to turn this into a joke. "You didn't commit a crime. You used deadly force appropriately against an armed and dangerous felon." I'll say it, and keep saying it, until he believes me. Today, tomorrow, next year -- however long it takes.

We sit for a while longer.

"What are you going to do now, Mulder?"

"What do you mean?"

"Now that you're out of the FBI. What will you do with yourself?"

I shrug. "Write, or teach, I guess. Make a life. I've never really had much of one before."

"A life with Scully," he says, and I go very still inside. This feels like the moment of truth. I just hope I can play it the right way.

"That's part of it," I say. "But if the two of us were enough for each other, we would have set up housekeeping long ago."

"What do you mean, enough for each other?" He sounds a little curious but mostly weary, like someone who is just making conversation to be polite.

"There's someone else that Scully loves."

I've startled him out of his funk; though that wasn't my intention, I'm glad of the side benefit. "That's impossible. She loves you wholly, Mulder. I saw how she was, when you were gone. And when we thought you--" He stops and corrects himself. "When she found out you were dead, well, I think she would have died too, if it weren't for the baby."

"She does love me wholly, Walter. I know that. It's been that love, and her faith in me, that have seen me through some pretty dark times. But Scully is a remarkable woman, and she has a very big heart. More than big enough to love two men at the same time."

"Do you love her?" he asks, looking like he's not sure he's going to like the answer.

"As completely as she loves me," I say. I've never felt the truth of that as strongly as I do now.

"Then how can you -- aren't you jealous?"

I take a deep breath and let it out, slowly. "No. This other man that Scully loves -- I've come to realize that I love him too."

~ Part 4 ~

I've shocked him speechless. I watch him try to get his brain around it.

He turns wide eyes to me and I look steadily at him and answer the question he hasn't asked. "I like women, Walter. I always have. But I also like men." Just now, one particular man.

He blinks. With his round glasses, he reminds me of an owl. "Me too," he says.

"Which part of what I said is the 'me too' part?"

There's a ghost of a smile on his lips, for all that his eyes have that trapped animal look. "All of it, Mulder. I like women. I always have. And I also like men."

Wow. I'm dumbfounded, not by his revelation -- though the part about liking men is very happy news -- but by the fact that he's been so honest about it. 

"You were married," I say.

"Yes. So?"

"So . . ." I'm not sure how to ask. It's none of my business, but I really want to know. "While you were married . . ."

"While I was married I was faithful to Sharon. But there were men before. A couple of them. In Nam."

The way he says that makes me think that maybe those men never made it home. "And since Sharon?"

"I've dated a little, but only women. CGB and his associates were always too close. I couldn't take the chance. Besides--" He breaks off and looks down at his hands, in his lap.

His jaw is doing that little dance it does when he's trying to control himself. I want to reach out and soothe away the tension in the muscle. But I don't. Instead, I say, "Besides, what?"

He doesn't look up, and if anything his jaw muscle clenches even tighter. But he answers me. "There was only one man I was interested in." And then he does look up, squarely into my eyes. "I didn't think he was interested in me."

I can still see the apprehension in his eyes, and the hopelessness, but now there's something else, too, the beginning of -- hunger. The meaning couldn't be any clearer. A wave of relief rolls through me, followed by one of fear. I've learned the hard way not to be sure of victory until it's firmly in hand. "Maybe you were wrong about that," I say. My voice is just a bit hoarse.

"Maybe I was." And his voice is just a bit hoarse, too.

The traffic noises have receded, masked by my intense focus on what's happening between Walter and me. I glance around. No one else is in the park; there's no foot traffic on the sidewalk. I deliberately push aside all the reasons not to do what I want to do, not to take this next step in helping Walter to understand the role that Scully and I want him to play in our lives. I get up on my knees, shift myself over, take his glasses off, pull him towards me and kiss him.

He kisses back, tentatively at first and then with more confidence. It's a surprisingly chaste kiss, considering that neither of us is inexperienced with men. There's nothing rushed or nervous about it, but there's a gravity to our actions that speaks of something profound, something sacred. Our tongues don't even touch; we celebrate this first communion with our lips alone.

When we lean away from one another, he's flushed but calm. My heart is beating rapidly and I'm half hard, but I'm in no rush to take matters any further. I'm not ready for more and I don't think he is either.

"Scully loves me?" he asks finally, and I realize that he's not calm so much as dazed.

"Yeah."

"And you?"

It's so heartbreaking the way he asks the questions. Like he can't fathom how we possibly could find something in him to love.

I take his hands in mine. "Yes, I love you." I lift one hand and then the other to my lips, and kiss his palms. It's the only way I know to show him that I trust those hands never to harm me. The only way to tell him that he need have no guilt about Krycek. The only way to prove to him that, as far as I'm concerned, his hands are clean.

He pulls free and looks at me with an expression of pain and grief, and as he does, the dam that he's built to hold back the floodwaters of his emotions begins to crumble. It's terrible to watch this strong, proud man fall to pieces, terrible to watch him fight himself every inch of the way. I take him in my arms and he fights me, too, not wanting me to see him come apart, but I hang on and eventually he relaxes against me and starts to cry. 

I'm surprised and gratified that he's accepting this embrace. I'll bet that he'd rather be flayed alive than do this in front of someone else - especially another guy. Yet here he is, in my arms, and it feels so right to be the strong one for a change.

He hates himself for what he did to Krycek, and nothing that Scully or I can say will turn that around overnight. He's sick over his betrayal in choosing Scully's unborn child over me; he'll have nightmares about that one, I think, for a long time. He finds it hard to believe himself worthy of love, and there's no quick fix for that either. I'm sure he'll spend some time, maybe a long time, pushing us away. I can understand that. I've felt the same way, behaved the same way, for most of my life. I don't do it any more. Death, and Scully, and Walter too, cured me of that particular affliction. I hope that Scully and I can help Walter heal, help him find some happiness.

We're there for a long time, my arms tight around his shoulders and his head on my chest, tucked under my chin. His own arms have crept up between us and he's got an iron grip on my sweatshirt. My knees are killing me but I don't want to disturb him by shifting my position. I rock him a little, back and forth, mostly because I think it will be comforting but also to relieve a little of the pressure on my kneecaps. 

When he finally stops crying, he doesn't pull away. I'm not sure he has the strength; he feels as limp in my arms as a rag doll. I would hold him forever, but if I stay on my knees like this much longer I think I'll be crippled for life. I manage to shift to a sitting position without letting go and, surprisingly, Walter lets me pull him into my lap.

His breathing is ragged, and so is mine. I stroke the back of his head and along his shoulders and think about a war photo I saw once in a book. One soldier was holding another, comforting his crying buddy. Walter and I, and Scully too, may not be soldiers, but we've been in combat. The horrors we've experienced won't be put to rest overnight.

Walter mumbles something into my chest. "What?" I ask.

He lifts his head just a little and says, "I said, now will you tell me why you came to see me?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"Yeah, I guess I have."

"And you haven't run screaming. This is a good sign."

"Not yet, anyway. God, Mulder, I'm so tired." His exhaustion is so profound that he sounds drugged.

"I know. What do you say we blow this popsicle stand."

"I'm not moving unless you carry me -- or find us a ride."

"I think I can handle that." I lay him back on the grass and step out to the curb and flag a cab.

###

I can't understand it. Mulder knows I tried to kill him, knows I did kill Krycek, and he's still here. Not only has he not turned his back on me, but he says he loves me. And he says that Scully loves me, too. I want to believe. I just don't know if I can.

Mulder opens the closet, finds a duffel bag, and tosses it onto the bed. "Pack some things, Walter." It's not exactly an order. More like a demand to make a choice. Lie down here at the side of the road and give up, or pick myself up and keep going.

He looks around, taking in the bland spread on the bed, the bare walls, the functional furniture, and I watch him and know what he's thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. I've never let myself want more than what this place represents. But now, with an ache that is fresh and raw, I begin to hope that there can be more, that maybe I can even dare to choose the path that would bring it to me.

"Where am I going?" I ask. I can't take my eyes off him. He finishes his slow inspection of the room and looks at me, and in his eyes I see an invitation.

"Home," he says, and with the word I catch a glimpse of what the future could be.

Mulder reaches out a hand to me. As in a dream I watch myself reach out, slowly, and take it. And with that handclasp I know I've made my decision. There's still a part of me that hurts so much, that is so weary, that it wants to crawl away and die -- but for the first time in a very long time, I have hope for the future. 

As if he's just pulled me from a precipice, Mulder draws me to him quickly, wraps his arms around me. He's trembling, but then he takes a deep breath and his body calms. He presses his lips to my forehead. It's a familiar sensation, and I realize that I did not imagine his kiss the night before, on the edge of sleep. It feels like something holy, like a sacrament.

He steps away.

"There's just one thing," I say.

"What's that?" He's wary, as if I'm about to place an impossible condition on our relationship. Well, that remains to be seen.

"I refuse to call you 'Mulder' in bed."

His eyes go wide, and then he smiles. "Walter, in bed you can call me anything you want."

"Anything?"

He's amused. "Well, maybe not anything. 'Honeybunch' would certainly not put me in the right mood. 'Darling' is icky."

"Is 'baby' icky too?" I try to keep my tone light, letting him take this either jokingly or seriously. I would prefer the latter; this particular endearment is one of the very few that I can imagine myself using with him, God only knows why.

He thinks for a minute, forming the word silently, testing it out. "It has potential for ickiness, but I could live with it, if you said it that way."

"How about 'Fox'?" I've never understood why Mulder doesn't like his name. Maybe it's just because no one, since his sister's disappearance, has spoken it with love. Until now.

He gets very quiet, and I think I've gone too far. He looks away for a long moment, and when he looks back at me, his eyes are bright and full. "That's not icky at all."

I nod thoughtfully, the way he did last night, a lifetime ago. I feel a tiny lessening of the pain in my soul. Maybe this is how to make it all disappear, bit by bit -- by letting myself love, and be loved. "Fox it is, then."

His smile is slow and sweet. "Come on, Walter," he says. "Let's go home."

###

William is peacefully asleep in his cradle when they arrive.

Walter puts the duffel bag he's carrying down by his feet and stands to look at me. He seems lost, and afraid, and very tired. I've spent most of today going over and over the events of the last few months, trying to view them from his perspective, and on an abstract level I can understand the enormous pressure he's been under. Now that I see him, that abstract understanding becomes concrete. I realize how easily we could have lost him, and that realization -- along with postpartum hormones, no doubt --undoes me.

Somehow I manage to cross the room without turning into a blubbering heap. I go to Walter, standing in front of Mulder, and put my arms around him. Mulder steps forward and does the same, pressing against Walter's back, one hand slipped between our two bodies and the other cradling the back of my head. It sounds more awkward than it is. It doesn't feel awkward at all. It feels perfect.

Walter's head is bent over mine. "Dana," he whispers.

I turn my eyes upward, not moving my head from Walter's chest. He's crying, silently, the tears falling heavily, one by one, down his cheeks and onto my forehead. Mulder is crying too, just as silently, making a wet spot on Walter's shoulder. Well, that makes three of us, I think, watching my own tears dripping onto Mulder's arm.

There was a time when I'd do anything to avoid crying in front of either of these men. And then Mulder was lost. During the months that he was missing, and then after we found his body, I think I cried an ocean onto Walter's shoulder. But I was always embarrassed at my weakness. It's not easy for me to lean on anyone.

This time, though, I feel no shame. Maybe it's because they're both crying too. There's an equality to it that feels right. I don't expect tears to be a habit with any of us, but it's been a long road to this moment and the only other thing that would defuse the buildup of months of tension and fear and grief is mind-shattering sex. And that's just not going to happen tonight, and not only because I'm out of commission. Walter's clearly ready to drop, and Mulder isn't far behind.

I'm waterlogged, and I sniff loudly. Walter is shaking and for a minute I think he's sobbing, but then I realize that he's laughing, just as silently as he'd been crying. "We must be a pretty sorry sight," he says, sounding more than a little waterlogged himself.

I laugh a little, and we disengage from one another and begin the mopping up operation. Walter takes off his glasses to wipe his eyes, and when he's done he doesn't put them on again but sets them down on the entryway table. He looks younger and more vulnerable without them. I find myself wondering if he wears glasses instead of contacts for that very reason, to bolster his tough-guy image in the Bureau.

A little normalcy is what we need, so we talk for a while about normal things like the weather and how I'm feeling. I take Walter by the hand and lead him to William. He reaches out one big finger and caresses William's little bald head so gently, so tenderly, that I think I might cry again. "A miracle," he says, and I have to agree.

Mulder is sitting on the sofa watching us, a look of utter satisfaction on his face. I go to him and he pulls me into his arms and then lifts me to sit across his knees. Walter looks at us uncertainly, as if he's not sure of his place in this blissful little domestic scene. I reach out a hand to him. "Join us," Mulder says, and he does. He kneels before us and lays his head in my lap. 

It's such a trusting gesture, and so unlike him -- I can't help myself. I start to cry again. As my tears fall I wipe them away with my thumb, tracing the sign of the cross on Walter's forehead as I do. I don't know why, exactly; I don't even know if he's a Christian. He could be a devout agnostic, like Mulder. I only know that this feels like a moment requiring a sacramental observance.

Walter crawls onto the sofa, puts his head back in my lap, reaches for Mulder's hand, and in minutes he's asleep. 

"Thanks, Mulder," I say softly, watching Walter's features smooth out in sleep. "You did good." 

I can feel Mulder's cheek rubbing along my hair. "Did I?" he asks. "He's here, but he's a mess. He's scared, Scully. And he doesn't like himself much right now."

"He's hurting, but we'll help him. He's carried us for a long time; I think we can carry him for a while."

"You sound very sure that we can make this work."

"I've already seen one miracle. How can I fail to believe in another?" I rest my head on Mulder's chest and drift, comforted by his heartbeat just as William is calmed by mine, safe and warm. Happy. 

A profound peace descends on us. I know it can't last, this perfect moment. It doesn't matter. The memory of it, I think, can see us through anything that might come.

Mulder stirs a little. "Walter said that he won't call me 'Mulder' in bed."

I smile. "Did he offer any alternatives?"

"Yeah. Do you think you could stand it if he referred to me as 'baby'? Strictly in the privacy of the bedroom, of course." He looks down at me. "Stop giggling. You'll wake him."

"Sorry. I don't dislike it, actually. I was just surprised. I can't quite imagine him using that word."

"Right there with you, Scully."

"That was his only suggestion?"

He's quiet for so long that I think he's not going to answer. Then he says, so softly that I can barely hear him, "Fox. He's going to call me Fox."

The brushing of his fingers across Walter's cheek tell me how he feels about that, and now it's not the hormones making me cry. I'm so grateful to Walter for giving Mulder back his name.

Walter sighs and shifts without waking. One leg hangs over the arm of the sofa. I can't imagine how he could sleep that way, but he doesn't seem to be having any trouble.

Still, we're going to have to buy a bigger sofa. This one's a little cramped for three.

I think we'll need a bigger bed, too.

~ The End ~

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Archived: August 26, 2001 


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